ISS Uses AR Headset to Upgrade Particle Physics Hardware

Blended Actuality headsets are not only for playing VR online games on Earth: The astronauts aboard the International House Station are producing use of an Augmented Reality (AR) method based mostly on business Microsoft HoloLens hardware with customized-intended computer software. Not long ago, NASA astronaut Megan McArthur utilized a HoloLens headset to perform a components replacement on a highly intricate piece of machines: The station’s Chilly Atom Lab.

The ISS’s Cold Atom Lab is a particle physics instrument that chills atoms down to just about complete zero, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273 levels Celsius), at which temperature atoms go considerably far more gradually than typical and can be examined in greater depth.

This technology is complex, and so protecting the instrument or replacing components calls for cautious recommendations sent to the ISS crew from Earth. With the mixed actuality headset, astronaut Megan McArthur could see an overlay of text and data when she looked at hardware like cables. And the workforce on Earth could even use an arrow in her eyesight to level to individual cables she wanted to unplug.

“Cold Atom Lab is investing in the use of this technology on the house station not just because it’s intriguing, but for the reason that it could offer further capabilities for these complicated responsibilities that we rely on astronauts to perform,” said Kamal Oudrhiri, Cold Atom Lab’s venture manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a assertion. “This action was a perfect demonstration of how Chilly Atom Lab and quantum science can take advantage of combined truth technologies.”

With the replacement components, the instrument now has a new capacity: Producing ultracold potassium atoms. The Cold Atom Lab crew on the ground says this implies it can be applied in a whole wide range of new particle physics experiments.

“This repair activity enables potassium gases to also be examined in Cold Atom Lab, which will help researchers to conduct dozens of new experiments in quantum chemistry and basic physics utilizing multi-species gases exactly where the atoms interact with just about every other in interesting ways at the ultra-lower temperatures only achievable in microgravity,” claimed Jason Williams, Chilly Atom Lab’s undertaking scientist.

“Our intention is for Chilly Atom Lab to become an evolving science facility so we can immediately establish on our investigation and get the job done with the astronauts to insert new components capabilities without having the have to have to establish and launch new facilities every phase of the way.”

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